


Back to the Beginning

by nerdiekatie



Series: Take It From the Top [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Adashi Family, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Light Angst, M/M, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Telepathic Bond, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, i guess, it's mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-18 01:42:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16108154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdiekatie/pseuds/nerdiekatie
Summary: Shiro gets sent back in time. He has the opportunity to change things. One-shot." 'Please!' he screams. He falls to his knees, dragging his hand down the wall. 'They’re just children!' He punches the ground, ignoring the way his flesh tears. The Blue Lion stays silent, and Shiro rages."





	Back to the Beginning

No figure comes out of the mist to give him a mission. No one tells him what’s happening.

It’s the silence that wakes him. Even in sleep, they should be in the corners of his brain. He should be able to feel them if he just reaches out. He should be able to feel the flow of their dreams.

Instead, there’s nothing.

He’s not alone when he opens his eyes.

He knows, suddenly, where he is. He knows _when_ he is. He’s 22 and on top of the world. He’s broken every record there is to break. He was just chosen for the Kerberos mission. He has two flesh hands and dark hair. The first symptoms of his ALS5 have yet to appear. Two years ago, he found his brother after years lost in the foster care system. His brother is now following in his footsteps at the Garrison. He thinks he’ll be better than he ever was. And four years ago, he started dating a wonderful man. He’s been thinking about proposing.

Shiro cranes his chin up to look at Adam in his sleep. He looks warm and soft and alive. His heart beats steadily underneath Shiro’s ear. Yesterday, he was four hours deep into a research database, and Shiro had to lure him out with tea. He loves him so much. He has never stopped loving him.

Shiro gently detaches himself and rolls out of bed. He said goodbye to this a long time ago, but he still can’t help but brush his lips gently over Adam’s forehead. He makes a small sound in his sleep and rolls into the warm spot Shiro has vacated.

His heart cracks, just a little. But he has something he needs to do.

* * *

 

He brushes his fingertips over the carvings in the cave walls before firmly pressing his whole palm into a carving of the Blue Lion. He focuses all his energy on trying to reach out to her, into the part of his brain that should connect to her through Black.

“I know I’m not your paladin,” he says, “but please. If we leave now, we can get a jump start on the empire. Allura can bond with you once we reach the castle, I know she can. We can find other paladins out there.”

The cave stays dark and silent. He pulls his hand back and slams it against the wall. “Please!” he begs. “They’re just children!” He thinks of them the day they stood here together, not knowing what would come next. Lance and Keith still had the lankiness of youth about their limbs. Pidge still had baby fat on her face. Hunk would start growing his wisdom teeth when they got to space.

He thinks of them as he last saw them, older, scarred, missing limbs. He thinks of the knowledge of the universe, its wonders and horrors in their eyes, and of how he could prevent it, prevent them being fucking child soldiers if only he could get the Blue Lion to listen.

He pushes the images at her, his desperation, the depth of his love for them. “Please!” he screams. He falls to his knees, dragging his hand down the wall. “They’re just children!” He punches the ground, ignoring the way his flesh tears. The Blue Lion stays silent, and Shiro rages. He pummels the ground, crying into the night until he falls into an exhausted and weary unconsciousness in the desert cave.

He wakes up to people calling his name. He’s crouched, on his feet with his hand out before he’s properly awake. War habits die hard. He still feels the absence of the paladins in his head, and instinct tells him that means danger and he needs to be alert.

But it’s only Adam, mirroring Shiro’s crouch and reaching for him. Shiro lets his hand drop, falling forward into Adam’s arms. His hands run over him, checking him for injuries. Shiro wants to laugh. He hasn’t been this uninjured in a lifetime.

“Get Maryam,” he tells the person behind him, and Shiro looks up to see Matt running back out of the cave. Adam cups his face and tilts his head up to look at him.

“You weren’t there when I woke up,” he murmurs, “and you wouldn’t answer your phone. I was so worried. Takashi, what happened? Why are you here?”

Shiro sighs, closing his eyes and reaching up to cup one of Adam’s hands with his. “Later,” he says, and he sees Adam’s eyes turn to flint. “I promise,” he emphasizes. “I’ll tell you later. I’m still trying to process some things. Ask me tonight?” Adam’s face softens, turning to concern again. He leans forward and lays gentle kisses on his cheek, on his forehead, on his lips.

It’s enough to make Shiro regret the way he left him this morning. Adam may not have agreed with his decisions, but that’s different than disappearing out of bed with no warning. For all their differences, he deserved better than that.

Shiro hears feet and voices coming into the cave. Maryam hurries ahead of Matt, clutching her medical kit as she kneels next to Shiro. She puts a hand on his wrist taking his pulse.

“You gave us all a scare this morning,” she tells him, put her stethoscope on and warming it up. She shoves a thermometer in his mouth.

Matt speaks while Shiro breathes through his nose for Maryam. “When Adam couldn’t reach you, he called me. And when I couldn’t reach you, I checked the GPS in your phone.” He says it like it was simple, but Shiro knows he probably had to hack into a few cell phone towers.

“It wasn’t accurate, since it was all the way out here. We grabbed Maryam in case you were hurt and Veronica to round out the search parties.” Shiro nods his thanks as Maryam disinfects and wraps the abrasions on his hand. She pulls the thermometer out of his mouth and checks it.

“You’re fine,” she says. “A little dehydrated, I think, but fine.” She stands up, bracing herself against the cave wall.

Her hand brushes a lion carving, and the cave fills with blue light as the floor disintegrates beneath them. They fall, sliding down a small waterfall and smacking into the floor. Maryam immediately scrambles around to check on everyone, but no one’s hurt.

The Blue Lion waits in front of them, as proud and tall as ever. They meet her gaze, and a vision of Voltron flashes before them.

But Shiro sees more than Voltron. Maybe it’s a remnant of his bond with the Black Lion, but he sees them, too. It could be chance, or it could be fate, but all the paladins are here. He can see Adam wearing yellow armor, Veronica yelling as she uses the red bayard to activate Voltron’s sword, Matt running around a lab in Green’s hangar that looks remarkably like Pidge’s had. And Maryam is already stepping up to the particle barrier around the Blue Lion, awe in her eyes.

They’re young, maybe younger than they should be. In Commander Holt’s eyes, he’s sure they look as young as Pidge, Hunk, Lance, and Keith looked to Shiro. But, they’re all adults. They’re capable of making their own decisions. And Shiro is going to give them the chance to make the choice denied to the kids.

“Wait!” he yells to Maryam. She turns around, looking dazed and faintly irritated. They all look to him, waiting. He takes a deep breath.

He tells them about the Galra and their empire, their plans for Earth. He tells them about Allura and Altea and Voltron. He tells them that they might never see their families again.

Silence reigns in the cave.  A light breeze sweeps above them, carrying the smell of cave water.

Adam steps up and puts his hand in Shiro’s. “Okay,” he says, and Shiro sees the truth of his vision. Of course, Adam is the leg that lifts Voltron up. He’s the leg that lifts Shiro up, after all. His simple _okay_ is statement of his belief in Shiro’s story and a commitment to joining him, costs be damned.

“We should call Keith,” Shiro says. They climb back up, out of the Blue Lion’s hiding place and to the entrance of the cave where cell service is best. The others follow them, and they spread out along the rock face for space to have privacy for their calls home.

“H’lo?” Keith answers. His voice is thick with sleep, because it’s still too early for fourteen-year-olds to get up.

“Keith,” Shiro says. His voice breaks. Adam squeezes his hand and leans into the speaker.

“We have to go, Keith,” he says. “We might be gone for a while.”

“Wait!” Keith says. “I’ll come with you.” Shiro can hear that he’s wide awake and frantic, afraid of being abandoned again.

Shiro finally finds his voice. He owes it to him. “You can’t,” he says, thinking of what would happen if the Red Lion decides she’d rather have Keith than Veronica as a paladin. Maybe, in the future, when Shiro is sure Keith is safe, he can join them in space, but until then…

“It has to be us. We’ll send you a message telling you why when we can. The Holts- you remember Matt?- they’ll get custody of you.”

“You- you promised.” His voice shakes. He can hear the tears behind the rage.

“I did. I’m so sorry.” Sorry doesn’t even begin to describe it. “We love you so much.” Beside him, Adam nods, tears streaking down his face.

“No matter what happens, Keith, we will never stop loving you.”

He sees a vehicle approaching the horizon. It’s Sam Holt, no doubt, coming at Shiro’s suggestion to Matt. They’ll need him to learn as much as he can from the Olkari so he can return and build Earth’s defenses.

“We have to go now,” he says. “Remember, we love-“ Keith hangs up before he gets a chance to finish. Shiro and Adam look at each with tears in their eyes and stone in their hearts. Shiro plasters himself to Adam’s side while he makes a quick phone call to his family, and then Sam pulls up to the cave.

It’s time.

* * *

 

After they form Voltron, Shiro knows that the other paladins- the new paladins, he calls them in his head- can feel the grief he radiates down the paladin bond. Sometimes, he looks at them expecting to see other people, and it hurts. And after the hurt comes the self-hatred, because this is what he wanted. This is the decision he made, as the adult, to spare his team, his first team because they were children, and it was never right that they had to fight a war.

This is what he wanted, but the paladin bond still feels strange to him like a cake that’s been made entirely with substitute ingredients and is only a cake by technicality. Like food goo instead of Earth food- it has all the nutrients and its own merits, but it’s still not the same.  

But Voltron needs honesty. So, he tugs on the bond in his brain and opens his mind to them. He feels them stop what they’re doing all over the castle. Beside him, Adam places a hand over his heart. Understanding rushes towards him, occupying different corners from the old paladins in his mind. One by one, they make their way to Shiro and embrace him, tacitly telling him that they are his team. He is allowed to lean on them. And he is allowed to mourn.

Finally, Shiro sinks into their arms, and he cries.  


End file.
